Part IV

TRADE IN HUMANS has been gaining momentum and includes trans­porting illegal immigrants to their destinations, procuring women for prostitu­tion, hiring people for slave labor, acquiring household servants from de­veloping countries, and selling children for illegal adoption for enormous sums.

There are adequate laws to prevent such crimes, and their stringency matches the transparency of state frontiers. However, the problem of trade in human beings is gaining a new aspect as large numbers of Third World inhabi­tants seek to immigrate to relatively more prosperous countries.

For the most part, the flow of illegal immigrants to developed countries is controlled by the underworld. Ordinarily, these people fail to find jobs and join marginal groups who are exploited and forced into crimes and disturbances.

TRADE IN HUMAN ORGANS. The first transplantation of the kidney is known to have taken place in 1954, of the lungs in 1963, and of the heart in 1967. Nearly half a million kidney transplantations have been carried out to date. Transplantation of body organs as a branch of medicine has given rise to an industry that supplies donor organs. The United States has about 70 organ-supplying agencies, and state and federal authorities are trying to regulate their activities.

There are some 12,000 potential donors in the United States. As this is much fewer than the number needed, illegal businesses that supply organs for transplantation are highly lucrative; a great many of them are based in Third World countries. "Donors" often commit murder for the sake of organs, or they get organs from children of poor families who sell this "commodity" for a pit­tance.

After the appearance of the first world press reports exposing illegal trade in human organs, a number of countries set up special commissions to draft laws that would regulate the acquisition of transplantation organs. There is sufficient evidence to prove that the delivery of organs from the Third World is controlled by criminal groupings based in Western Europe.

1. What does the concept “trade in humans” include?

2. Why is trade of human beings gaining a new aspect?

3. What is known about first transplantations of human organs?

4. Why have illegal businesses in this sphere become possible?

5. Why is the trade in human organs considered sometimes criminal?

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CRIME

Since the 18^th century, various scientific theories have been advanced to explain crime. One of the first efforts to explain crime on scientific, rather than theological, grounds was made at the end of the 18^th century by the German physician and anatomist Franz Joseph Gall, who tried to establish relationship between skull structure and criminal proclivities. This theory, popular during the 19^th century, is now discredited and has been abandoned.

A more sophisticated theory- a biological one-was developed late in the 19^th century by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who asserted that crimes were committed by persons who are born with certain recognizable hereditary physical traits. Lombroso’s theory was disproved early in the 20^th century by the British criminologist Charles Goring. Goring’s comparative study of jailed criminals and law-abiding persons established that so-called criminal types do not exist. Resent scientific studies have tended to confirm Goring’s findings.

Another approach was initiated by French political philosopher Montesquieu, who attempted to relate criminal behaviour to natural or physical environment. His successors have gathered evidence to show that crimes against persons, such as homicide, are more numerous in warm climates, whereas crimes against property, such as theft, are more frequent in colder regions.